EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW : JOSTON THENEY - AXEMAN
By: John Meneghetti
Some of horror's most prominent Scream Queens come together for the razor-sharp fright flick Axeman, available across the US & Canada on DVD and VOD starting May 6th, 2014. Tiffany Shepis, Brinke Stevens, Elissa Dowling and Jamie Bernadette join former NBA star Scot Pollard in Joston Theney's blood-stained love letter to classic slasher movies. We caught up with Theney to find out how many axes were harmed during the making of the movie.
Why an Axe? Why did you choose for your central bad guy to wield an axe?
Home Depot and Lowes were all out of plungers so I grabbed the next best thing. Actually the next best thing was a circa-1932, rusted out bra-clasp from an industrial-strength 42FFF-sized brassiere. Then we settled for the axe. It was a compromise that actually worked out very well. But can you imagine if we’d gotten our way? “Plunger-Man from Plumber’s Crack” would’ve had an awesome ring to it!
How much researching into Axes was required?
I consider myself more of a plunger aficionado and have given such incredible attention to the nuances of proper plunging practices, techniques and tools. The axe thing just kind of fell in my lap. But in giving axes the attention they deserve and staying true to kind of carnage they can create, I did sign up for a UCLA extension course in Axe-ology and Axemative Modalities. It was very informative and cringe-worthy at the same time. Gave me more material to work with when writing AXEMAN.
Did your actor Scot have to learn how to swing or carry an axe properly? Or was he proficient in that area?
Scot Pollard? Have you not seen this guy play basketball? The guy carries an axe like most players wear headbands. Scot was a natural and was quite accurate – he only sent a couple of actors to the hospital.
Ha Ha! Before doing the film, did you sit down and watch any other similar horror classics to familiarise yourself with their structure again?
Growing up on 80s slashers and never really growing out of them, there really wasn’t much reacquainting needed, lol. This was and always has been my favourite era of filmmaking. It was a time when creativity and entertainment value were the things that drove film. It was a time where they’d just exited the 70s grindhouse stuff and was so far removed from the Golden Era of flimmaking and trying to discover the clear voice of their time. They experimented and tried new things. Threw tons of things at the wall to see what would stick. You never really knew what you were going to get but you knew it’d be something you’d be talking about with friends for the next couple of weeks or months. It was just fun.
How long of a shoot was it? Did the Axeman need to slaughter anyone to make the deadline?
Hahaha, We thought it was going to come to that a couple of times but we managed to squeak by on a very tight deadline. The film was originally scheduled to be shot over the course of 10 days, however due to weather and an insect problem, two of those days were lost. So we had to squeeze a two hour film into 8 shoot days with zero chance of pick-ups. It was a race to the finish line, but we did make it... well, at least most of us did.
Axeman II : The Dark Axeman Rises . Is it happening? In all seriousness, do you think the film lends itself to a sequel?
Certainly! Blood Red Films’ Christopher Otiko has already greenlit part 2 and 3. We go into production a little later this year on AXEMAN 2: OVERKILL which brings back one or two surviving cast members from the original as well as Monique Parent and Jessica Cameron. More blood, more gore and higher bodycounts – just like the sequels to some of the 80s best slashers!
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